Freedom from Addiction

[Christsfreeservant]

Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”​

Lay it Aside

Are you addicted to porn? You don't need a 12-step program to get you free. You need to surrender your life to Jesus Christ, abandon your lifestyle of sin, and in the power of the Spirit of God, walk in the ways of the Lord. Then you will not gratify the desires of the flesh (See Gal. 5:16).

And, yes, I do know what I am talking about. This is not theory. This is in practice. Too many of these porn addiction recovery programs keep people still in bondage to sin, dependent on other humans, rather than on God, repeatedly failing, and always a step away from the next failure. But you can be free!

Addiction is enslavement, pure and simple. We are all enslaved to sin before we believe in Jesus, but via God-given faith in Jesus Christ, we are delivered from our enslavement to sin so that we now become slaves of God and of his righteousness. Thus, it is a lie which says you can't be free (Rom. 6:1-23).

It is also a lie which tells you that it could take years, and many books, and therapists, and support groups before you can live in victory over your addiction, too. And, it is a lie which keeps you dependent on therapists and support groups to keep you "sober" sexually so that you don't fail.

But, let me say this here. You will not be free if you don’t truly want to be free. Saying you want it, and truly wanting it are two different things. Saying you have repented of your sins and truly repenting are also two different things.

Also, confessing is not the same as repenting. Confessing is just admitting the sin. Repenting is turning away from it and now walking in obedience to the Lord. But you can’t repent of what you won’t admit. If you aren’t willing to allow God to show you what is in your heart, and if you aren’t willing to have all that sin removed from your heart and life, you will never be free.

So, what I am getting at here is that porn is often just the symptom of a deeper sin issue, like pain might be a symptom of a broken bone, or dizziness might be a symptom of a sinus infection, or shortness of breath might be a symptom of lung cancer. Porn addiction is a symptom of having no fear of God.

Not saying that porn addiction is not sin, but that there are underlying sins that need to be dealt with first if one is to ever experience true freedom from their slavery to sin. For example, if we are fearful, it is a sign of lack of trust in God and in his sovereignty.

So, if your solution is just to try to not look at porn any longer, but your heart hasn't changed, and you still hate, and you don't fear God, and you have unforgiveness and resentment and bitterness in your heart, those have to go, too, if you want to be free. You must confess those sins and turn from them and allow the Spirit of God to truly set you free.

In other words, we can’t dress the sin wound as though it is not serious. We can’t put Band-Aids over deep sin issues and expect them to be healed. We have to dig out that cancer, and we have to cast it away in the power of God’s Spirit at work in our hearts.

For, if you hate, then you resent, and if you resent, then you devalue, and if you devalue, then you abuse, and if you abuse, then you use, and you take advantage, and you feel entitled, and so you go to porn. So porn addiction isn’t just about lust, like rape isn’t just about sex. It is about power.

Let us Run

Too many people are trying to run the race that God has set before us, but they are still weighed down with multiple sins and with many triggers which lead them into sin, because they are unwilling to cooperate with God’s plan of salvation for our freedom.

And that plan is that we must die with him to sin so that we can live to him and to his righteousness. We must surrender our lives to him, turn from our sins, allow the Spirit of God to transform our minds and hearts, and then we must walk in obedience to our Lord in his power and strength.

And, we must remain focused on Jesus and on his plan for our lives. Daily we must die to sin and self and follow our Lord in obedience to his will and to his word. We must be in his word, studying it, taking it into our hearts and minds, and then by God’s grace, we must apply its truths to our lives.

We can’t be spending our days, when we are not working, just playing games, surfing the Net, watching videos, TV, and movies, and playing on social media, etc. We can’t be taking into our minds, hearts, eyes and ears, the filth and the junk of this world, either. For out of what is stored in our hearts comes all kinds of evil behaviors.

If we want to live in moral purity, then not only must we be surrendered to the Lord, dying to sin and living for God daily, but we must be putting into our minds and hearts what is of God – what is pure, honest, moral, upright, godly, and decent, etc.

And, then we can live morally pure, upright, and godly lives while we wait for Christ’s return. We can run that race that God has marked out for us, because we have cast off those weights of sin and those hindrances to our walks of faith which lead us into sin, and because we are walking in obedience to our Lord, according to his will and purpose and in his power.

So, if you have not yet done so, I pray that today, by faith in Jesus Christ, that you will surrender your life to Jesus, that you will turn from your life of sin, and that you will turn to the Lord Jesus to follow him in obedience one day at a time, by his grace and in his strength, and under his direction.

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,
Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

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[Tolworth John]

Accept not everyone can do that.
For many it is hard enough to resist temptation from moment to moment without taking on the demand of total rejection.

Are they weak, well yes if they weren't they wouldn't have ended up addicted to what ever they are addicted to.
If a twelve point plan enables someone to overcome there sin, don't knock it, not unless you are going to be available for them for when they fall. As the people in these recovery programmes are.

 

[Lost4words]

Good post OP.

God bless you my friend

 

[icxn]

Are you addicted to porn? You don't need a 12-step program to get you free. You need to surrender your life to Jesus Christ, abandon your lifestyle of sin, and in the power of the Spirit of God, walk in the ways of the Lord.

I was going to agree... but then I went I checked what the 12 step program is and now I'm confused. From the description of the steps it seems very Christian-like to me. Why do you find fault with it?

Quote from wikipedia:
The following are the original twelve steps as published by Alcoholics Anonymous:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

 

[Christsfreeservant]

Accept not everyone can do that.
For many it is hard enough to resist temptation from moment to moment without taking on the demand of total rejection.

Are they weak, well yes if they weren't they wouldn't have ended up addicted to what ever they are addicted to.
If a twelve point plan enables someone to overcome there sin, don't knock it, not unless you are going to be available for them for when they fall. As the people in these recovery programmes are.

John, Jesus set us free from our addiction to sin and he is the one to empower us to live holy lives, pleasing to God. Yes, we can't do it in our flesh, for you can't fight the flesh with the flesh. We can only do this by God's grace, through faith in Jesus Christ, as we surrender our lives to the Lord in submission to his will, and as we yield control of our lives over to the Lord, we don't resist him, but we cooperate with his work of grace in our lives by doing what he says to do as he gives us strength to do it.

The problem with a lot of these 12 point plans is that they are man-created. And, they teach dependency on other men instead of total dependence on God, and many of them encourage a mindset of always an addict or always a recovering addict but never free, and that just isn't biblical. Jesus died to free us from our enslavement to sin so that we would now be slaves of his righteousness and as we yield our lives over to him, we can walk in freedom and no longer be slaves to sin.

Personally, what I have seen of these support groups is that these men go on for years and years still addicted to porn or to lust, always doing the "sin confess, sin confess," but never ever getting totally free. So, they feel they must attend these support groups and they must go to these therapists for years and they still aren't free. They are still getting together and for many of them it is just to confess how they failed that week, and so that is just feeding addiction. And, many of them are set up to just let the men talk but with no group accountability and with noone offering a solution to their problem or sharing Scripture to help them, in many cases. So they end up feeding the addiction mindset and many of these men just continue on their cycles of addiction.

 

[Christsfreeservant]

Good post OP.

God bless you my friend

Thank you! Glory to God!

 

[Christsfreeservant]

I was going to agree... but then I went I checked what the 12 step program is and now I'm confused. From the description of the steps it seems very Christian-like to me. Why do you find fault with it?

Quote from wikipedia:
The following are the original twelve steps as published by Alcoholics Anonymous:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Actually, there is nothing "Christian" about it. It is very geared toward people of all religions and their own perceptions of God. It has some good stuff, though, I agree. But it is lacking the message of the cross of Christ which is the only power that can set anyone free from slavery to sin. And, in all practicality, these groups are often not producing people who are living free from slavery, at least not in the sex addict groups that I have been made aware of. See reply #5 here.

 

[Tolworth John]

The problem with a lot of these 12 point plans is that they are man-created

Yes they are man made, just as your computer, house, clothing, and car are all man made.
So what.
Medicine is developed by men and made by men for profit, do you refuse to use commercially produced medication.
The Bible is silent on the use of any thing we have developed.

Jesus died to free us from our enslavement to sin so that we would now be slaves of his righteousness and as we yield our lives over to him, we can walk in freedom and no longer be slaves to sin.

The problem you have seen is of unsaved people trying to solve there problems in there strength which, as you have rightly said they cannot do.
In most of these self help groups there are very rarely Christians, so if there is no one to talk to them about Jesus, how do they hear.

It is one area where churches can help, our church was approached by one of these groups and prior to lockdown etc met every Monday in our rear hall. Our minister and a couple of others have been on site to help them set up , clear away and to greet them as they arrive. They are not allowed into the actual meeting, but are there to talk to them, befriend them etc.
Several have attended church services, many will happily chat with the Christians there to greet them.
One has come to know Jesus, but in his daily struggle with addiction he follows the plan, he also daily commits his life over to his saviour.
There is no sudden release. Only a source of strength if he is prepared to accept and use it and that is true of All Christians in there life long struggle against temptation and sin.